Again, lemme remind folks, this poll is ONLY for estimating what membership fee levels we should set, and is NOT any kind of income forecast. (To do that with any degree of reliability, we'd have to do a professional marketing survey.)

Again, lemme remind folks, this poll is ONLY for estimating what membership fee levels we should set, and is NOT any kind of income forecast. (To do that with any degree of reliability, we'd have to do a professional marketing survey.)

What I think metis was trying to point out is if we set the bar too high we will lose some members.(using numbers from the initial post)If we set the membership at $100 a month we only have one person willing to pay that much.If we set it at $40, we have 11 willing to pay at least that much.

percentages are important, but you need to sum them with higher levels as well.

the actual numbers allow you to extrapolate more visually the pricepoint break and sweet spot where we bring in the most cash, which happens to be almost where we bring in the most bodies (at this point)

OK, I get what you're trying to say now... but I think we can interpolate & simplify here.

For a sliding scale, the sweet spots are likely $20 (student), $50 (standard), $100 (sustaining). The challenge will be making those numbers meaningful, setting up appropriate incentives for higher rates, and suchlike.

i guess at this point i'm not seeing the value of sustaining, and from prior meetings the concensus was that we didn't' want tiers of membership...

i think a student discount makes sense, but what do you *get* being sustaining other than a cool title, i.e. we kinda rejected the "founding member" tag. if we're a NFP (even if we're not) folks can always give extra money.

metis wrote:i guess at this point i'm not seeing the value of sustaining, and from prior meetings the concensus was that we didn't' want tiers of membership...

Not for voting rights, no. This would be more about shop space & such.

metis wrote:i think a student discount makes sense, but what do you *get* being sustaining other than a cool title, i.e. we kinda rejected the "founding member" tag. if we're a NFP (even if we're not) folks can always give extra money.

I don't like tags or titles either; they sound pompous. But if somebody's willing to pay for that privilege, well, the money will spend just the same.

We'd have to figure out the incentives, like a branded merchandise packet, and/or name engraved & posted on a plaque (again, hokey, but it's recognition & shows gratitude), option to name something in the shop (like one of the PCs or drill presses etc.) I'm sure folks can come up with all kinds of ideas. You get the idea. It's silly, it's gimmicky, but it's fun, and it works.

RELATED EXAMPLE: Trent Reznor & Nine Inch Nails, when they released the 4-disc album "Ghosts I-IV", disc 1 was available free for download. Discs 1 through 4 were available for $5 on Amazon and came with a bunch of extra stuff in a .PDF file (which was what I opted for). For $10, there was a physical 2 CD set with a printed booklet. For $75, there was a "deluxe edition" package, a box set which included a DVD & a Blu-Ray disc of video, plus everything that was available in the lower-priced packages. And then there was a $300 "ultra-deluxe" limited edition package, with everything plus additional merch & band autographs; only 2,500 of these were produced. This super package sold out in 30 hours. $750,000 cha-ching!

Now, I understand that NIN and TCM don't exactly have the same member base yet. But I think we can come up with some incentives that folks would be willing to pay for, don't you? Even on our smaller scale, that extra would be worthwhile and significant for us.

this could change, it it seemed like with the exception of tools requiring training we wanted everyone to have access to everything?

and again, do we want a privileged logo polo shirt? if you can ONLY get it by paying more then it's a differentiation between members, (look what i did) but if you can get it for 20$ in the shop, why pay an extra 50 for it?

i can see donation plaques on gear, (the metis memorial anvil or some such) or having a gifts roster "benevolent folks, really benevolent folks, folks who gave us a whole lot of money and all they got was their name on this list...., corporate sponsor..."

imho members should be giving gifts not for recognition, but for the good of the group, and making a big deal out of it differentiates between members.